Chapter 3 – THE VELVET BAG
The velvet bag hit the marble floor with a heavy thud.
Ethan didn’t move. He stared at his uncle, the man who had taught him how to ride a bike, how to tie a tie, how to run a boardroom.
“Why?” Ethan asked. His voice cracked, stripping away the billionaire facade and leaving only a betrayed nephew.
David leaned heavily on his cane, looking exhausted.
“Richard Mercer found out about the painting a month ago,” David said, his voice trembling. “He knew it held the key to the original patents. But he also knew I had a secret of my own.”
“What secret?” Ethan demanded.
David closed his eyes. “Ten years ago, when the Vale company was struggling, I borrowed money from Richard to keep us afloat. Off the books. If I didn’t help him steal the painting tonight, he was going to expose the illegal loan and send me to federal prison.”
Margaret stepped forward, her eyes narrowing.
“You betrayed your own father’s legacy to save your own skin, David?”
“I did it to save the company!” David shouted, his composure snapping. “Ethan was twenty-eight! He wasn’t ready to lose everything!”
Ethan walked over to the velvet bag.
He knelt down and untied the thick golden drawstrings.
His hands shook as he reached inside and pulled out the original painting of the farmhouse.
The stormy blue sky. The thick brushstrokes. And there, in the bottom left corner, the crescent-shaped repair Margaret had mentioned.
It was beautiful. It felt alive in a way the fake hadn’t.
But as Ethan held it under the light, his brow furrowed.
“Margaret,” Ethan said, staring closely at the canvas. “The crescent moon.”
“Yes?” she asked, stepping closer.
“It isn’t just a repair.” Ethan ran his finger over the raised texture. “There’s something underneath the paint.”
Margaret’s eyes widened. She quickly pulled a small scalpel from her restoration kit in her purse.
“Your grandfather always insisted I never thin the paint over the moon,” she murmured, her hands working with surgical precision. “I thought it was sentimental.”
She carefully scraped away a tiny flake of the blue oil paint.
Underneath, embedded perfectly into the canvas, was a micro-SD card.
David gasped, leaning heavily on his cane. “Richard didn’t know about that. He only wanted the painting to destroy it.”
Ethan carefully pulled the tiny memory card from the canvas.
“My grandfather didn’t just leave patents,” Ethan realized. “He left a digital archive.”
He looked at Leo, who was still standing nervously by the wall.
“Leo, lock the gallery doors. Don’t let anyone in.”
Ethan walked to the auction house’s main computer terminal. He slid the SD card into the reader.
A password prompt appeared on the screen.
Question: What is the weight of a promise?
Ethan froze.
“The weight of a promise,” Ethan muttered. “I don’t know. A date? A name?”
“Try Clara,” David suggested weakly.
Ethan typed it. Incorrect.
“Try the date of the fire,” Margaret offered.
Incorrect. One attempt remaining.
The screen flashed red. Warning: Drive will wipe upon final failure.
Ethan stared at the screen, panic rising.
Then he remembered the old silver pocket watch in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the heavy chain.
He turned it over. Engraved on the back, beneath the bank numbers, was a tiny measurement.
21 grams.
“The weight of a soul,” Ethan whispered.
He typed 21.
The screen turned green.
Dozens of files flooded the desktop. Audio recordings, scanned contracts, and bank statements.
Ethan clicked the first audio file.
His grandfather’s voice, raspy and tired, filled the room.
“If you are listening to this, Ethan, it means Richard Mercer has finally made his move. But Richard didn’t act alone. The person who set the fire in 1987… the person who tried to kill me… is standing in the room with you.”
Ethan’s blood ran cold.
He slowly turned around.
David had dropped his cane. In his right hand, he was holding a suppressed pistol, aimed directly at Ethan’s chest.
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